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Lived in Vienna for 8 years, now in Berlin for the past 3. Vienna the city is great but I'd definitely say the biggest downside are the Viennese (I know this is
by ido 10y ago
Lived in Vienna for 8 years, now in Berlin for the past 3. Vienna the city is great but I'd definitely say the biggest downside are the Viennese (I know this is ironically the most Viennese thing I could say).
Basically everywhere in the German speaking world it's considered kinda weird to talk to strangers and people are quite...Shy, I guess? It's always the thing I appreciate most on visits to Canada, the US or the UK, just how talkative and nice people are.
This applies more to Austrians than to (north) Germans, and the Viennese are additionaly also grumpy and complain about everything, despite living in one of the cities with fewest things to complain about.
Also personally felt a lot less accepting of foreigners than Berlin. I far more often felt like a curious attraction and "obviously" you're not really Austrian if you're not ethnically Austrian, even if you speak German and have lived in Vienna your whole life.
- musha68k 10y agoJust to offer another point of view here: What you say is true but IMHO things have been improving on the "culture" side over the last 2-3 years especially.
- DyslexicAtheist 10y agoI too like to think it did, a lot of it has to do with foreigners coming in and working alongside Austrians in offices. In tech, some companies have even English as their internal language (in Germany more common). this is good: http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21712044-city-century-how-vienna-produced-ideas-shaped-west http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21712044-ci... (always wondered what is the reason so many great minds have put their thoughts to paper (all during roughly the same time) in Vienna. The place was a breeding ground for both the most crazy and the most genius ideas.
- ido 10y agoWhat specifically happened in the last 2-3 years?
- kirushik 10y agoEurovision-2015?
- SerLava 10y ago>and "obviously" you're not really Austrian if you're not ethnically Austrian, even if you speak German and have lived in Vienna your whole life. Ouch. That's pretty bad, especially for... you know... Austria.
- ohgh1ieD 10y ago> I far more often felt like a curious attraction and "obviously" you're not really Austrian if you're not ethnically Austrian, even if you speak German and have lived in Vienna your whole life. Once you master the Austrian 'Schmäh' everything is good :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Schmäh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Schmäh